One of the causes of climate change is the emission of CO2 as a result of the use of fossil-based fuel. This is indeed most true in the Pacific area, and in particular in Samoa, where both the transportation and the production of electrical energy relies on diesel fuels with consequent increase of bill expenditure. On the other side, natural hazards, which are ever increasingly becoming more dangerous because of climate change phenomena, require a more resilient supply of energy, to avoid power outages in remote villages. Finally, there is a need for local decision-makers to develop new policies that encourage decarbonized energy
production.
A response to tackle these two issues is the use of decarbonized distributed energy, by using microgrids (MG) These would be able to allow the production of “green” electrical energy by using renewable energy sources (RES) and can either work connected to the main utility grid or operate in stand-alone mode is a disconnection occurs, to make the energy quality more resilient and avoid service disruptions.

The project is funded by RERIPA.

Publications